Whether this "occult" explanation of the radiation of aura be a true one or not, it serves to give one a beautiful conception, viz., that every soul may strive so to live within that he sheds upon his fellows glorious rays of light, serenity, warmth, comfort, blessing, joy, happiness that help them to the attainment of like felicities. In the earlier part of this chapter Swedenborg's assertion will be recalled that those who were unspoiled, real children of Nature, could actually perceive these aura, and that their acts were guided or influenced by them just as ours are by the perceptions of our five senses. When I began to visit the Hopi Indians in Northern Arizona, who celebrate that wonderfully thrilling religious ceremony known as the Snake Dance, I found that their lives conformed exactly to this aura assumption. They handle deadly rattlesnakes with fearlessness, putting small ones into their mouths so that nothing but their heads protrude, and larger ones, up to five feet in length, in their teeth, head on one side of the mouth, the writhing, wriggling body on the other. Young boys, from three to six and ten years of age--neophytes of the Antelope Clan, which, with the Snake Clan, has charge of this ceremonial prayer for rain--hold these snakes during a part of the ceremony with an indifferent carelessness that is appalling to most onlookers. On the other hand those who are alive to the dangers attending the handling of snakes assert positively that the reptiles must have their fangs removed, as otherwise they would bite, and either cause death or dangerous sicknesses. Yet both classes of observers are in error. The snakes are not handled carelessly, nor are their fangs removed. Apparent carelessness is often the result of years of training, the ease and readiness that come with much experience. Fearlessness is another result of experience and knowledge. But, once in a while, a member of the Snake Clan is afraid, and at such times he is not allowed to dance. In this exclusion is a strong suggestion that the Hopis fully believe that not only do the aura of our mental and spiritual states surround us, but that even to the lower animals they are as perceptible as light, heat, and cold. It may be true that the truly occult, or clairvoyant, by pure and simple living, return to the clarity of spiritual perception of the child and the lower animals, and they likewise see and understand. In the case of the snakes, the Hopis believe that if a dancer is afraid it makes the snake afraid. In other words, the reptile sees or discerns the "fear aura," and, at once, its own fear is awakened. When afraid it assumes the defensive, for that is its only mode of protection. It coils ready to strike, and rattles in warning: Beware!